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House rebuffs Baker, restores $275M in cuts gov made

By Andy Metzger, State House News Service

Updated:
09/14/2017 07:57:32 AM EDT

BOSTON -- Undeterred by tax collections that are trailing benchmarks two months into the fiscal year, the Legislature is half way toward restoring $275 million in spending that Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed from the annual budget.

Without debate, the House on Wednesday voted to put back funding for the Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine, a big data fund, and rental assistance among dozens of other priorities.

House Democrats needed just a few hours to speed through votes overriding a majority of the $320 million that Baker excised in July, when he signed a fiscal 2018 budget that he said had a $39.4 billion bottom line. The spending will be restored if Senate Democrats also agree to the overrides.

House Republicans who voted to uphold Baker's vetoes lacked the numbers to stop the overrides and did not seek to persuade Democrats with floor speeches.

Before the votes began, House Minority Leader Brad Jones, a North Reading Republican, urged his colleagues to hold off on addressing the spending vetoes until a clearer picture has formed about first quarter tax revenues and the impact of Hurricane Harvey on fuel prices. Jones said Democrats may be setting up Baker to again need to make midyear budget cuts, known as 9Cs.

"By restoring such a significant amount of spending at this time, my fear is that we may see a repeat of what happened last year, when the governor was forced to make a series of 9C cuts to bring the budget back into balance," he said in a statement after Wednesday's session.

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Baker, a Republican who is expected to seek re-election next year, is ultimately responsible for balancing the budget.

"The current fiscal environment, specifically soft revenue collection reports to date, indicates there is no basis to support the decision to increase spending by $275 million," Baker spokesman Brendan Moss said in a statement.

Baker and the Legislature have been forced to revisit annual budgets midyear to account for slow-growing tax receipts that fell short of estimates, with imbalances compounded by the Legislature's insistence on spending more than revenues allowed.

In fiscal 2016, Baker vetoed $163 million, the Legislature restored $98 million and revenues came in $481 million below the state's final revised benchmark. It was a similar situation in fiscal 2017, when revenues missed the revised benchmark by $431 million after the Legislature restored $229 million of the $264 million vetoed by Baker, who has also faulted the Legislature's budgets for funding accounts at levels that are likely insufficient.

House Ways and Means Chairman Jeffrey Sánchez contended that the budget lawmakers sent the governor in July was balanced, Baker's vetoes "cut too deeply," and Wednesday's overrides were only "first steps" towards restoring funding. The funding restorations are sustainable, Sánchez said.

"We're going to start with vetoes that have a statewide impact and consider regional items in the upcoming weeks, and we're continuing to monitor our fiscal trends and weigh our options as well," Sánchez told his colleagues on the floor.

The bulk of the money targeted for restoration, or $220 million, will go back to MassHealth to cover caseload costs, Sánchez said.

MassHealth, the massive public insurance program, was targeted this year by Baker with cost-cutting reforms, which the Legislature rejected.

While Baker's vetoes have been public since July, information about which ones would be targeted for overrides was tightly held before House leaders in the early afternoon revealed they planned to take up 61 line-item vetoes for override votes totaling $274.7 million in spending. On Wednesday morning, House lawmakers told the News Service they did not know what overrides would be taken up that day or how much added spending would be in play.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo on Monday indicated that the overrides scheduled for this week would be somewhat modest.

"It's not going to be a great amount of them," DeLeo told reporters after meeting with the governor and others.

For the past few years, the budgets that have passed into law have tipped out of balance partway through the year, requiring spending cuts and other actions to shore them up. Two months into the fiscal year, tax revenues are running $11 million behind benchmarks.

"I decided to vote to sustain all of Governor Baker's vetoes, even though it meant voting against restoring funding for many worthwhile programs I otherwise would have supported," Jones said in a statement. "In my opinion, it would have been more prudent to wait and see what revenues look like in September and perhaps even October before moving forward with overrides."

The Senate, where Democrats also hold a veto-proof majority, is not planning to meet until late in September and it is unclear whether veto overrides will be the chamber's first order of business.

Citing the Democrat-backed state law that hiked pay for lawmakers and other public officials at the beginning of this year, the Massachusetts Republican Party said Wednesday's actions showed Democrats to be irresponsible money managers.

"Democrats just can't be trusted as responsible stewards of our tax dollars. Now, having cancelled tax relief for consumers, and raising their own pay, their latest act of fiscal irresponsibility will place taxpayers in further jeopardy. If they really cared about their constituents, they would support the Governor's efforts to balance the budget, while apologizing for their votes to fatten their own paychecks," MassGOP spokesman Terry MacCormack said in a statement.

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